Man Accused Of Mugging Oakland Park Woman, Stealing $8

FT. LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – A 65-year-old woman wants to know why an accused 25-year-old robber attacked her so violently this past weekend when he robbed her of her credit cards, driver’s license and $8 in cash.

“I would ask him why,” said the victim Ruthie Kykendall in a CBS4 Exclusive. She asked CBS4’s Peter D’Oench that only part of her face be shown but she agreed to tell her story.

“I know these things happen, but this was not something I was expecting,” she said. “He hit me with his hand while he was riding hike bike. That’s all he took. Just eight dollars. I mean money doesn’t matter to me. Why did he do that? Why did he come at me from behind.”

Kykendall said the attack happened on Andrews Avenue at Northeast 35th Street at 8 p.m. on Saturday as she was walking towards a Publix supermarket.

As the defendant in this case, Nelson Woodworth, came before Judge John Hurley in bond court, Hurley noted how a police report said this was a violent crime.

“He rode up behind her and crashed into her and left and came back,” said Hurley, reading from the report. “Then you knocked her to the ground and you punched her and struck her in the chest. Then you took her wallet.”

“I tried to chase him down but he got lost. I then went back and called police,” said Kykendall. The Broward Sheriff’s Office says in a report that Woodworth was found two blocks away from the crime scene on Andrews Avenue at Northeast 33rd Street.

BSO says Woodworth had Kykendall’s wallet with her driver’s license, two credit cards and $8 in her cash with him.

“It’s been years since anything like this has happened to me,” said Kylendall.

“Does this make you afraid?” asked D’Oench.

“No,” she said. “I am not going to let this person make me a prisoner in my own home. It’s wrong to take money from people. I know the economy is tough out there. But you should get a job. This was wrong.”

Kykendall told D’Oench she had some scrapes and bruises on her right leg but she fortunately had no broken bones.

“You are a danger to the community,” Hurley told Woodworth. He initially set bond at $60,000 for the charges including the robbery and the attack on an elderly person.

But he held Woodworth without bond because of some prior cases.

A records check shows that Woodworth has been arrested before on charges including stolen property, burglary, leaving the scene of an accident, grand theft and selling drugs.